Tuesday, October 21, 2008

The shape of PR to come

I imagine I'll be getting more releases like this in the future. Maybe one day the weekly boxoffice grosses charts will stand alongside weekly YouTube pageview charts in Monday's papers, if newspapers are still being printed then.

"Acclaimed filmmaker Wayne Wang's new film The Princess of Nebraska made its world premiere on YouTube on Saturday, October 18, 2008 at 12:00am EST. With more than 165,000 views in its first two days, the online launch represents the most successful studio film premiere in YouTube's history. In relation to a theatrical release, the film would have placed around 15th on the box office charts. The free release was launched on YouTube's Screening Room, a new channel dedicated to premium film content: http://www.youtube.com/ytscreeningroom.

Magnolia Pictures' Ray Price said, “It’s astounding that over a two day period The Princess of Nebraska became the most widely viewed independent film in the country.”

The Princess of Nebraska is adapted from a collection of short stories by Granta prize-winning author Yiyun Li. It marks the eighth of Wang’s Asian-themed films that explore the bonds of family and Chinese identity in the modern world, making up one of the largest bodies of introspective work in independent film over the last 25 years.

In The Princess of Nebraska, Sasha (Ling Li) is a foreign exchange student who finds herself pregnant. She’s the new generation of China, unmoored to traditions and history. As she says, “In America I learned a new phrase, ‘moving on.’ Tomorrow I can start a new page.” She travels from Nebraska to San Francisco to get an abortion, but in her exploration of the city in the next 24 hours she learns that turning a new page doesn’t necessarily mean turning your back on the past.

Please use the link below to view the trailer:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJISq4MyfKg"

UPDATE: And so I watched. Not bad, but it's a movie with YouTube-sized only aspirations.

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Coverage

The author is an Associate Editor of Cineaste, the Film Editor of Popdose, a Contributing Editor to the New York Theater News newsletter and Array magazine, and a freelancer for publications that have included The Wall Street Journal, MovieMaker, Playbill, Slant, and Time Out New York. He is a member of the Online Film Critics Society. A member of the New York-based Drama Desk, the theatrical critics association, Cashill was on its Executive Board (2008-2009) and was an awards nominator for the 2007-2008 season.